


The Devil Is In The Details

by Charphlosion



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-05 21:38:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charphlosion/pseuds/Charphlosion
Summary: What happens after the season three finale? How does Chloe handle proof of the divine, and how does Lucifer cope with the fallout? Starting right where season three ends, this story reconciles the devil we know with the man from the myth. Please leave feedback. Enjoy.





	1. It’s All True

“It’s all true,” said Chloe Decker, adrenaline narrowing her focus to pinpoints; its black walls pressing in so she saw only him down the narrow tunnel of her vision. Dizzy, tired and profoundly shaken, Chloe felt as though she was balancing on quarters, as she took two teetering steps backward. She felt his movement towards her. Her stomach lurched. She became aware of the blood rushing in her ears as his distant voice touched her.

Across the room, Lucifer’s red eyes went wide. His hands raised quickly, palms out, and Chloe flinched at the sudden movement. She couldn’t quite turn to run.  
“Detective,” he said “Chloe”, reaching a hand out in his rush to calm her.

Regaining at least her balance, Chloe ran back through the open door. She thought only of getting away, getting space, getting air into her lungs.

Lucifer stood struck.

He felt his human face returning and he mentally shook himself. Not now, not like this, not Chloe. He hurried up the steps to the door. But he was just in time to see her drive away.

* 

Detective Decker was a practical woman; logical and careful and lawful. She toed the pedal and watched the speedometer, climb, with one eye. It was her job to find evidence. It was her job to figure out the truth and enact the law. As she drove she did the math in her head; adding the hints and actions, discounting the words. She knew better than anyone that the adamantly honest were the biggest liars; like children, they still thought so literally. They were self-centered and never self-aware. She’d never taken it for malicious of course. She knew Lucifer was as oblivious to his narcissism as a toddler, but he couldn’t be honest to himself, much less avoid misleading others.

He was the devil and Chloe could accept that. She was surprised at how readily now she could accept that. But what she didn’t know was what it meant. She drummed her fingers anxiously on the steering wheel and played her time with him over and over. She needed her case files and her notes. Chloe had always tried not to judge people by their past. Everyone had a past in LA. But this was bigger than her; Lucifer was the devil and she had to weigh things up. She just couldn’t do anything until she could reconcile all the stories. She was driving herself mad with her circular thoughts so she tried to push it from her mind as his red eyes haunted her. There was nothing she could do right now.

As she rounded a corner a little too fast, looking back to check she’d taken the right turn, there was a flash too close. Chloe threw her eyes over her other shoulder. She heard the screech and the instant crept as the hulking truck careened toward her. Her mind ran a thousand times fast. Her hands didn’t get the message. She barely turned the wheel. She saw the driver, the truck, the swerve; too late.

With a mighty crunch and the devils face in her mind, Chloe’s world went black.

 

*

Lucifer could feel a rising in his chest, a weight that pushed at the back of his throat and threatened to spill from his mouth. His hands were restless. His feet couldn’t think on their own and he paced a single hard circle before ripping his phone from his pocket.

He looked at the screen, with its meaningless numbers and its scantily clad background image. He shook himself. Who was he going to call? What was he doing? Normally, he knew, people needed a little space to deal with the devil; to process divinity and reflect on their place in it all. But he couldn’t give that now. He couldn’t risk it with the detective, with Chloe. His heart pounded, pushing him to move. He stole himself. He took a breath and grabbed his keys from his pocket, but of course, he had driven the detective’s car there, the one she had driven off in. He cursed. He was about to open his bloodied wings for another flight when the flashing of police lights came over the crest of the hill. Backup was there. It would be trouble for Chloe if he walked away. Besides, the rest of the police wouldn’t be able to figure out the crime scene. “Damn it!” he cursed again. 

The cruiser pulled up and detective Espinoza got out. No doubt Chloe had called him from the rooftop.  
“Where’s Chloe?” he asked immediately. Lucifer hesitated and Dan took a step towards him, somewhere between questioning and threatening.  
“She’s fine” he said, “She’s shaken up. She drove off in a hurry. I think I scared her” he said. When Dan just looked at him Lucifer added “I killed Caine.”  
Dan’s shoulders, which had been high and tense, now dropped. He shook his head consolingly. “We’ll sort this out” he said, “Come on.” He put a hand to Lucifer’s shoulder and guided him back towards the door. 

Inside, Dan surveyed the scene. Shards of glass were scattered across the concrete. Blood and feathers made for a chaotic gallery panorama. Paintings hung crooked and some split across their guilted frames or fallen to the floor. A white sheet that had been draped over a display table was riddled with bullet holes and what looked like it had been a priceless vase lay in pieces on the ground. There were men, Pierce’s goons probably, laying in the dust and blood. Some had clearly been shot, others looked as though they had been knocked down. There was a smear of blood where someone had staggered to their feet and escaped.  
“Jesus,” said Dan, bringing his hand to his mouth “how?” He rubbed his brow. “It looks like they turned on each other.”  
Lucifer, who had been watching, cocked his head. “Those ones,” he said, “were shot by” here he gestured to the smear on the floor, “The thug that I threw on the ground over here.” He looked a little surprised. “It seems he made a getaway.”  
“We’ll have plenty on the Sinnerman now,” said Dan. He pointed another officer to the blood trail that headed away from the scene. “We’ll say it was self-defense.” He looked reluctant but determined.  
“He was trying to kill me,” said Lucifer.  
Dan nodded “Good.”  
“Well, I thought we'd made more progress than that, Daniel.”  
“You know what I mean” he frowned. He walked over to the body. He peered at it with obvious disdain and then scrunched up his face. “Is that…”  
Lucifer interrupted “It’s Maze’s knife.”  
Dan sighed.  
“I’ll need to take that,” said Lucifer.  
“What?” Dan’s neck was doing that frill-necked lizard thing it did sometimes when he was angry. “Are you insane? What am I saying, of course you are.”  
“It’s not of this world,” said Lucifer.  
“Right,” said Dan, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, this isn’t, I don’t have time to humour you right now. You’re going to look really guilty if you take that knife.”  
“I’ll deal with it,” said Lucifer.  
“No you won’t,” said Dan.  
Privately, Lucifer decided it would be easier to convince the lovely Ella and let it go for now. After all, it was his brother who worried about humanity discovering the divine. There was only one person whose knowledge of it mattered to him, and he had just let the proverbial cat out of the bag on that one.  
“You need to come back to the station and make a statement,” said Dan.  
“But Chloe,” said Lucifer, and Dan actually looked sorry.  
“She can handle herself. It’s better for both of you if you deal with this first and I really can’t let you go, after all the Lieutenant is dead and the department is not going to take that laying down.”  
“I suppose you’re right” agreed Lucifer. He even let Dan cuff him for appearances, withholding the comments about bondage and domination, and they headed back to the station in his cruiser. On the road, Dan asked him what happened. Lucifer gave him the abridged version. There was no sense trying to convince Dan of the devil, it would blow his tiny mind.  
"Christ," said Dan, when he'd finished. "Well she did nearly marry the guy, but she was as ready to take him down as the rest of us. she just needs some time."  
Lucifer said nothing.  
"I'll call her when we get to the station."  
At the station, Lucifer delivered his statement to some officers he'd only met once before, when he was trying to focus on everyone but Chloe. They were reluctant to let him go, but Dan assured them Lieutenant Pierce was guilty, and there was really no arguing with the crime scene. One of the goons that was only knocked out had confessed to working with Pierce shortly after Lucifer was brought in. 

“Alright, we’re good here,” said Dan. “Chloe’s not answering her phone. If you see her, have her call me.”  
Lucifer gave him a nod and headed for the door. He was stopped by Ella, who predictably threw her arms around him in sympathy. “I’m sorry man. Look, you did what you had to, Chloe will get past it and you’ll be fine.”  
“Yes. Thank you,” he said and waved her off.  
She called after him “Call me if you want to talk!”  
Lucifer marched out the door.  
He found a dark corner and spread his wings. He had to find Chloe, make this right. He lifted off into the cooling air, his bloodied silver-white wings whistling in the cold breeze. Bullet holes slowed his flight, reducing his lift and his reach. Were he remotely like a bird he would have found himself crashing to the earth, but his celestial power kept him aloft. 

First, he touched down at the detective’s house. He knocked once, twice, three times and no answer. “Detective!” he shouted through the door “Chloe we need to talk, please!” He lifted his hand to knock again when the door swung open. But he wasn’t greeted by the angry, or haunted, or determined face of his detective. Behind the door stood an elderly woman, portly and ginger-haired. She looked him up and down. “Miss Decker iz not 'ere,” she lilted “Pleaze come back some ozer time.”  
“What? She should be back by now” he puzzled.  
“Yes, she should” huffed the woman “I need to get home to Charlie. 'E will claw up ze couch if I am too long.”  
“Right” said Lucifer. “Look, call Daniel, the child’s father. I have a feeling it’s my fault she’s late,” he said and he turned around and took off again. 

On the doorstep, the old woman stared into the sky. She took a moment to pull herself together, looked up and down the street, and then put the bizarre daydream out of her mind. Men in suits didn't sprout wings and fly away. She was tired.

*

Lucifer had checked her home, the precinct, Dr Linda’s office, even Lux. He half expected her to be there demanding answers when he arrived at the penthouse. It was empty. His shattered wings ached at his back. He was accustomed to pain so he ignored it. In any case, Chloe wasn’t here. It would heal soon enough.

Just then his phone rang in his pocket and he answered it without even looking at the ID. “Detective?” he asked, moving to the balcony.  
“Is Chloe with you?” It was Dan.  
“No” said Lucifer. He tried to conceal his building fear but couldn’t hide the break in his voice.  
“Dammit” cursed Dan, “I just got a call from Trixie’s sitter. She hasn’t gotten home.”  
But Lucifer didn’t let him continue. He hung up without answering. He flexed his damaged wings again and looked out across the city. Where are you, Chloe Decker?


	2. Where Are You Chloe Decker

Dan heard the line die as he tried to press Lucifer. He looked at his phone “Damn it!”  
He had no doubt that Lucifer would try to find her, but he couldn’t stand being benched like this, not when people he cared about were in trouble. He headed back to his car and got in, starting the engine. He felt resigned. He had a duty to his daughter and Trixie would be scared. She was a smart kid. She knew how dangerous her mother’s job was. 

Dan thought about stopping for chocolate cake, something to keep Trixie happy and distracted. He cursed himself for having played that card too often already. 

He took the usual turnoff, right on the speed limit. He was about to push the car a little harder when he saw the red and blue flashes of police lights at the corner. He eyed the yellow detour sign with a creeping sense of dread. Rolling to a stop, he peered into the dark beyond. As he suspected there had been some kind of accident. A truck was parked half off the curb and the road was littered with glass and plastic and twisted metal. But then he saw the car. The silver car, bent and cracked and leaning on its side. The car missing a wheel and a door, bonnet crumpled smoking. It was Chloe’s car.

Dan threw his door open and ran to the traffic cones marking the scene. Without thinking he pulled out his badge and flashed it at the officers. They were standing around the dented truck and waved him through.  
“What happened here?” He asked.   
“Undetermined,” said one of the officers, “The driver of the truck says he didn’t see the car come around the corner.”  
“What about the woman who was in the car?” He pressed quickly.  
The officer gave him an odd look but obliged “The paramedics took her,” he said.  
“Which hospital?” asked Dan, feeling the terror building.  
The officer shrugged.  
Briskly, Dan nodded his thanks. He was already heading back to the car and he had never been a praying man, but he said a quick one now. He didn’t want to imagine raising Trixie alone. He didn’t think he could do it.

He dialed Lucifer’s number again and It rang out.  
“Shit” he swore, trying to redial as he navigated a new route to Trixie. He tried again.  
“Daniel,” Lucifer answered this time “what is it? Have you found her?”  
“Lucifer, listen, man, you know you’re the last person I’d ask but I need a favour” he said. There was silence on the other end of the line and then an annoyed sigh.  
“As curious as I am to know what you’d come to me for Daniel, I’m a little busy right now.”  
“I know,” he said “Look, this is about Chloe”  
Lucifer didn’t speak but Dan could feel his silence turn to urgency. Daniel needed the man in his right mind. Well, at least he needed the man in as right a mind as the delusional narcissist could be.  
“I know where she is,” he said, “But I need you to watch Trixie.”  
“Where is she?”  
“I can’t explain that right now, you’re going to have to trust me.”  
There was another pause.  
“Right. I don’t suppose anyone else is available?”  
“I wouldn’t call you if they were,” he said.  
Lucifer just sighed again. It sounded like an affirmative sigh but, to Dan’s annoyance, before he could ask Lucifer had hung up. 

*

When he got there, Lucifer was there already. He looked disheveled, as if he’d had the top down on his convertible and sped down the highway. But the convertible wasn’t parked in the driveway.

The babysitter was standing on the porch with her bag and her arms crossed.   
“Ah, Daniel,” said Lucifer “Could you please tell this woman I’m here to watch the spawn.”  
“How did you … you know what, never mind.” He said waving off the sitter. She stepped away from the door, grumbling to herself about all the strange men in Mrs Decker’s life. 

Inside the door, Trixie was listening intently.   
“Hey sweetie, you should be in bed,” said Dan  
“Where’s Mommy?” Trixie asked. She was wearing defiance and a pout of the utmost concern.  
“Mommy’s busy with work,” he told her.  
She studied him “Are you coming to stay?” she asked.  
“No sweetie, Daddy has something he has to do. Lucifer is going to look after you, okay?”  
Trixie brightened at that. She looked up at Lucifer who was still waiting on the porch.   
“Will Mommy be back before morning?” she asked.  
Dan felt the fear curling in his gut again. He didn’t know.   
“Well you’ll be asleep won’t you,” he cautioned “so it won’t matter what time she gets in.”  
Defeated, Trixie sighed and nodded.  
“Okay Daddy,” she said, giving him a final hug, and she took Lucifer by the hand to drag him back inside. “I’ll show you where the story books are”.  
Lucifer looked at Dan and Dan nodded his thanks.  
“I’ll call soon,” he said, and he headed back to the car.

*

“Right,” said Lucifer, a little nervous at being uninvited in Chloe’s space when she so clearly didn’t want him around, “What should we do with you?”  
Trixie grinned mischievously “I haven’t had my dessert yet” she smiled.  
“Dessert?” asked Lucifer “and what does that usually entail?”  
“Mom lets me have chocolate cake,” she said  
“Is that right? Well, I think I can do a bit better than plain old chocolate cake” he gloated.  
“But I like chocolate cake”  
“Well then you’ll like this even better,” he said, thinking that if he couldn’t speak with Chloe, at least he could impress her offspring.

Lucifer got to work in the kitchen while Beatrice regaled him with tales of her part in the school play coming up. She was playing the wise hermit in The Tigers Whisker and she proudly told him how she had helped to design the costume and how she had convinced her shy friend that he would make a good tiger. Lucifer marveled at how like her mother she was, not that he liked the child. She was a child after all. He could admit a certain degree of fondness by association, but that was surely all. 

Lucifer baked a rich chocolate gateau with chocolate mousse. He had to order in for some of the ingredients. When it was done, it was dazzling, beautifully glazed and topped with fresh berries. Not bad if he did say so himself. The child took a bite and her eyes lit up.  
“Yum!” she exclaimed.  
“Yum? That’s all you can say? That cake’s a masterpiece!” he said.  
Trixie laughed.

After that, even Lucifer knew that it was getting late, but Dan hadn’t called and if he was honest, he was enjoying himself. He’d started reading the parts for Yun Ok, which Trixie had said her mom was going to do, and Trixie was putting on her best mysterious expression as she gave him the important quest. Lucifer would pause the scene every so often and adjust the child’s stance or offer her advice, or demonstrate his own best ancient mystic. He was beginning to feel sufficiently distracted when his phone began to buzz. Trixie looked on with open curiosity and Lucifer took the phone out to the porch to answer. He closed the door.

“I’ve found her,” said Dan. His voice was oddly distant and there was an echo in the background like he was standing in an empty hallway.  
“And?” asked Lucifer, eying the child over his shoulder, still practicing her lines inside.  
“Bring Trixie,” He said, “St Anne’s. She’s in the ICU.”  
“What?” Lucifer froze. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He hung up the phone, turned around, and walked inside to get Beatrice.


	3. Work With Me Chloe

Chloe was wandering down a hallway at the precinct. She hadn’t seen this hallway before, and in fact, she was sure there weren’t any hallways in the open plan building at all. But still, she knew it was the precinct. She was wandering because of the doors. There were hundreds of doors along the way and she had left her case files behind them. She was so overwhelmed by the job that she didn’t know where to start. Each door was identical white, except for the handles. At first, she thought each handle was a simple brass knob, but the closer she looked the more different each one became. One was encrusted with diamonds. Another was black and shimmering. Another still was festooned with police tape. She tripped and turned and twisted between the doors in her indecision.

It seemed in one moment like she was going to stumble along this corridor forever. Then, in the next, she was turning the nearest handle so fast she couldn’t be sure which door she’d gone into. It was the sound; the honking of a mighty horn and a bright white floodlight that swamped the hall and shook the hinges of the doors. She looked around. It was dark. But despite the featureless blackness, she was sure that she was in Lux.

After a moment she saw a beacon; a spotlight in the distance. She stumbled towards it. There, on a raised platform, was Steinway & Sons signature grand piano. Black, sleek, illustrious. Two fingers of whiskey and a still smoking ashtray placed carelessly on its closed top.

Then came the man on the piano stool. She knew, of course, who it would be, but it still surprised her. There was Lucifer, red devil face and all, caressing the keys and crooning quietly. Somber. She noticed customers milling about now, but they didn’t seem to notice or care who entertained them.

Lucifer looked up. His eyes burning embers.  
“Detective” he greeted in his silken voice.  
“Why don’t you tell me something,” she asked, “How does she end up dying in a hailstorm of bullets, and you get away without a scratch?”  
Lucifer shakes his head, holds up his hands. They are covered in blood.  
“What will your corrupt little organization do about this?” he pleaded “Will this be a priority for you? Because it is for me.”  
Chloe backed away and suddenly she was in the hallway again. She couldn’t be there. She could hear a motor growling and growing closer, so she ducked into the nearest door.

“Detective!” greeted Lucifer again. This time he was out in the sunshine, outside her daughter’s school. Still his face was red and scarred and again no one noticed.  
“Lucifer!” yelled Trixie. That voice always took her attention. Beatrice ran right up to the devil and threw her arms around him. He patted her on the head.   
“I’ve never understood the human desire to procreate,” he said.  
“Do you know how dickish you sound?” she replied.  
But Lucifer only looked confused. He shook his head and, with all seriousness, said “No.”  
Trixie smiled at him and waved. “Bye Lucifer. It was nice meeting you!”

Chloe heard gunshots. She turned around and there was Lucifer, leaning over her. She watched from behind as he touched her face and told her he wouldn't let her die. It was odd watching herself lay there on the floor. She tried to shout to Lucifer, to tell him to watch out. but her voice was stuck in her throat. Six shots were fired and he took them; one, two, three, four, five, six. Then she watched as he lifted Jimmy Barnes above his head and thought all of hell at him. Jimmy's face twisted. It morphed into other faces, every person who threatened her life. It morphed into Pierce. Chloe couldn't watch. She stumbled backward through a door and back into the hallway.

*

Lucifer picked up Trixie without explaining and she made a little yelping sound.  
“Where are we going?” she asked, as Lucifer grabbed some of Chloe’s clothes and threw them in a bag. He turned to leave then doubled back for a pillow.  
“Listen, child,” he said “I need you to close your eyes and hold on very tightly. I won’t drop you.”  
“What are we doing?” she asked, a little concerned now.  
“I’m taking you to see your mother. We’re going to fly there, but don’t ask me to do it again, this is a one-time deal.”  
Trixie grinned, then did as she was told, closing her eyes and holding on.  
“Here we go,” he said, and he opened his wings for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.”

*

At the hospital, Dan was pacing in the waiting room. He wanted to be in with Chloe, but he needed to keep it together for Trixie. He’d called two other hospitals before St. Anne’s and they had brought her in as a Jane Doe so he’d had to come and confirm. He’d seen them working to keep her alive. He’d seen the blood and the machines she was hooked to. He was running purely on adrenaline now. They hadn’t been able to tell him much except that they were working to get her stable, but she was alive. She was alive and if she had any say in it she would pull through. Chloe was strong, maybe stronger than he’d ever given her credit for.

*

“Wow!” Said Trixie when they touched down. She smiled up at Lucifer. “That was cool!” she said, and for a moment Lucifer wished everyone could be as easy to please as the child. But then Trixie saw the hospital. “Is mommy okay?” she asked with a mixture of hope and fear. Lucifer couldn’t confirm that hope, but neither could he answer her fear, so he just took her small hand and marched through the emergency room doors. Trixie had to run to keep up with his long strides but he didn’t slow down. 

In the waiting room, Lucifer found Dan pacing and his instinct was to grab the man and demand to know what was happening and why he hadn’t told him where she was earlier, but he was mindful of the child and his priority was Chloe. “Where is she?” He asked. Dan was saved from answering because at that moment a nurse poked her head around the door, “Espinoza?” She said. Daniel took Trixie by the hand and followed the nurse, leaving Lucifer to reshuffle the bag and pillow he was holding and hurry after them.   
“Through here,” she said “Last bed on the left. We’ll move her to a private room in the morning,” she told him. The benefits of being a cop, Lucifer supposed. Either that or very good health insurance. 

Chloe looked small on the bed under all the machinery. She had tubes in her nose and an oxygen mask. She had wires hooked up and a drip in. She had her head held still in a brace and a pin sticking into it. Her face was deeply bruised down one side and swollen. she was sweaty and tucked stiffly into the narrow hospital bed.

Lucifer sat in the chair by her head and Dan took the other side, with Trixie on his lap. Lucifer put the bag down on the floor and handed Trixie the pillow. The little mite was already close to sleep.   
“You were safe,” whispered Lucifer in desperation “I saved you."  
Trixie looked at her father “What happened,” she asked, her big brown eyes full of fear.  
“There was an accident on the road,” said Dan. Lucifer looked up, then back at Chloe, shaking his head.  
“A car accident?” He shook his head again. “This was my fault,” he said quietly.  
Trixie put her hand on her mothers. “You’re going to be okay,” she told her.

A doctor came over a few moments later. Lucifer eyed the suspiciously fresh scrubs with discomfort and noted that Chloe was already receiving a blood transfusion.  
“Mr. Espinoza?” he asked, and Dan raised a hand. “May I speak with you.”  
“Hop up monkey,” said Dan, shifting the child and following the doctor out through the blue hospital curtain. Trixie repositioned herself on the seat, leaning on the pillow and stretching one hand out to be closer to her mother. Lucifer reached carefully over and swept the sticky strands of hair from Chloe’s face.  
“Is she going to be okay?” asked Trixie.  
“She has to be.” Said Lucifer. “There are plenty more bad guys to catch.”

Dan came back shortly, expression drawn. He looked at Lucifer and then he spoke to Trixie.  
“Mom hit her head. The doctors are keeping her asleep at the moment so that she can get better and it seems like she’s doing really well” he said. He knelt next to Trixie and held her face between his hands “But it can be hard to tell how bad someone’s injury is when its in their brain.” He paused while Trixie absorbed this, eyes quickly becoming watery as her suspicions were confirmed. “Mom might wake up and be fine, or she might wake up and not be able to do the things that she used to, or, even though we are all doing everything we can,” here Dan’s voice broke “she might not wake up at all.” He took a deep breath. “Do you understand what that means?”  
Trixie was sobbing quietly and she shook her head, but then she said, “It means she might die.”  
Dan put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She gripped back with desperation. He spoke into her coat “Whatever happens Monkey, there will always be someone to look after you. You know you’ve got me, and Nana.”  
“And Lucifer?” Asked Trixie.  
“Always,” Lucifer added quietly.  
Dan gave him a grateful nod.  
“It’s going to be okay.” He said.  
“It is,” said Lucifer suddenly, and he stood up. “I have to go.”  
Dan looked up, eyes red and watery, and he frowned at the devil.  
“I’ll be back,” said Lucifer “I promise.”


	4. White Feather

Lucifer crashed through the swinging door to one of the hospital’s men’s rooms. The mirrors in the hideous, off-white room were smaller than he’d have liked, but they would have to do. He flexed his shoulders and shudderingly, almost begrudgingly, his wings arched out. They knocked on the doors of the stalls and ripped the towel dispenser from its crooked angle on the wall. He shook out his feathers and looked them over. They were torn and bloodied. He only needed a single one to be undamaged. 

As he searched them, a stall door opened. The bearded man that stood behind it stared. He wore grubby stonewashed jeans and a flannel shirt. He looked like he’d only wandered in to the hospital to use the lavatory.“Do you mind!” exclaimed Lucifer, having lost his place checking along the line of primaries.“Uh,” said the man. He looked from the wings to the sink and back. “Sorry,” he said and he hurried away into the hall.“Don’t wash your hands on my account!” Lucifer shouted after him.He’d plucked out a half-dozen feathers he thought were fine, only to find each one marred by bullet or blood. “Damn it!” he cursed. How could every feather be ruined? Chloe needed him.

Lucifer threw his coat back on and left the hospital. He couldn’t keep flying. He’d get an Uber for the short trip to Lux and pick up his car. Surely one of the feathers he had lost at the gallery was still clean. He couldn’t afford to wait for them to grow back. He hit the Uber app on his phone and ordered to his location. Three minutes away. He sighed. Why did his devil face have to come back now? Why right at the worst possible moment just to taunt him, to take away what he had just saved. He wasn’t fooling himself. Despite his father’s rules, Lucifer knew that it wasn’t killing Caine that gave him back his devil face. He knew it was his selfish, cruel revenge, cursing Caine to an eternity of suffering he had already suffered. If he were truly mortal he was sure the weight of his soul would be dragging him straight to hell right there and then. Something for the good doctor. Right now he didn’t have time to become lost in the mire of his emotions.

 

*

Lucifer found the crime scene empty and still. The body was gone, the blood was gone, the feathers were gone. He was in a panic. He picked up a shattered frame and threw it across the bare room where it splintered against the white concrete.“They can’t be gone!” he shouted “They have to be here!”  
Lucifer paced.  
“Evidence. Of course, they’ll be in evidence,” he told himself and he was back behind the wheel of the convertible as quick as he’d left it.

“Ella,” he said over the phone as he drove “I need your help.”“Lucifer?” she said “I can barely hear you.”“Hands-free” he said “I. need. your. help”.“What is it?”“Meet me at the precinct.”“Right now?”“Yes, now!” he snapped, and he hit the talk button to end the call. He shifted up a gear as he hit the main road and he drove like he was invulnerable.

*

In the forensics lab, Ella was drinking a coffee. Her hair was flyaway and she was wearing a shirt with an angry looking yellow duck on it. “What is it Lucifer?” She asked him, not sounding put out exactly, perhaps concerned.   
“What happened to the feathers at the crime scene?”  
“What?” Asked Ella “The feathers?”  
“Yes, miss Lopez, the feathers. Where are they?” He snapped.  
“In a bag in the evidence room” she said “they weren’t exactly priority. There was blood on everything.”  
“Right,” he said “well we’ll need to deal with that later, but right now I need those feathers”  
“Dude,  We already know it was self defence. It was self defence right? I mean Pierce was trying to kill you.”  
“Yes of course, but look, proof of the divine and all that. I need the feathers and any blood that’s mine too. Oh, and the murder weapon”  
“Woah, woah, hey! You want me to steal a murder weapon from evidence? What’s going on?”  
“Miss Lopez, we really don’t have time for that now. I need at least one intact feather. I’ll deal with the rest later.”  
Ella crossed her arms “okay big guy it’s time to tell me what’s going on,” she said. Lucifer almost shook with impatience.  
“Can’t you just trust me?”  
Ella shook her head sadly. “Lucifer” she said “I’ve been trusting you. It’s time to share.”  
Lucifer gripped the edge of the bench and leant forward. “Chloe’s in trouble” he said.  
“What?” Ella looked genuinely confused and shook her head.  
“On her way home from the crime scene, she was in an accident.”  
Ella looked mortified.  
“She’s in the hospital. They’re saying she might not wake up” he silently choked on his words and gestured with his hands to indicate he wasn’t done. “I have to save her” he said.   
Ella threw her arms around him.   
“Oh Lucifer” she said.  
“Miss Lopez, you don’t understand, I need that feather. I can heal her.”  
Ella stepped back and looked him in the eye. “This isn’t your fault” she said “You should go be with her...”  
“Miss Lopez!”  
“But, I don’t think anyone is going to miss one feather.”  
Lucifer clapped his hand onto her shoulders. “You’re a marvel” he said “we need to go now.”  
Ella nodded and turned around.

She was in and out of the evidence room mercifully fast. She opened the large plastic bag she was carrying and placed the contents on her table. There were six smaller bags, each with a few feathers in them. Lucifer surveyed them carefully, until he could see one faintly glowing, just enough that human eyes might mistake it for a slight refraction of light.  
“Yes” he sighed, opening the bag carefully and taking the unblemished feather out. It was perfect. It had to work.“It is beautiful” said Ella  
“Thank you,” said Lucifer.She looked at him oddly.“Well it is mine,” he told her.

*

 

Chloe was in the hallway again. She tried to peer through the gaps around the doors but couldn’t see anything. She kept walking and walking. The hallway just went forever. She peered down it to see if she could see the end and there was nothing, but then a tiny pinprick of light. She moved towards it slowly and although she was sure she hadn’t passed a single door, the light got larger, closer. She was determined to reach it. She thought she saw something over her shoulder and then suddenly the light was on her; close, too close. The ground shook and she tried to turn around and run but there was an almighty crash and the floor beneath her shattered like glass.

She was falling and falling, and she landed on that rooftop.

She was on the helicopter pad, Lucifer holding her close. His eyes were full of fear, his clothes tousled, his hands quivering. Her arms were around his shoulders and she looked into his eyes.“May I have this dance?” he asked, and they began to twirl slowly on the rooftop. Golden strips of confetti falling from above. She reached out to catch one in her hand and a single white feather landed there instead. She marvelled at it.

When she looked up, Lucifer was staring at her.“Please,” he said “don’t”.Chloe looked down to where her hand was extended. She was touching his bare shoulder and she traced the scar that ran in a crescent moon behind his shoulder blade.“What happened?” She asked.He shrugged his shirt back on and shook his head. “Well, where do I begin? With the grandest fall in the history of time? Or perhaps the far more agonizing punishment that followed? To be blamed for every morsel of evil humanity’s endured, every atrocity committed in my name? As though I wanted people to suffer. All I ever wanted was to be my own man here. To be judged for my own doing. And for that? I’ve been shown how truly powerless I am. That even the people I trusted—The one person, you—could be used to hurt me.”  
“Lucifer,” said Chloe, touching the place at her neck where the bullet used to hang, “you make me vulnerable” she said, and she felt it. She really did. But as she looked at him he turned away.  
“Candy!” He called.  
Her stomach dropped  
“There’s mrs Morningstar,” he chuckled, and in walked Candy, swinging her expensive handbag and grinning.


	5. Heaven and Hell

“Okay, you have to let me drive,” said Ella, looking over his car.   
Lucifer clasped his keys in his pocket “Any other time, Miss Lopez”  
“I know a shortcut,” she needled.   
“Fine,” he said. “Quick then, to st. Anne’s. Come on, let’s go.” Lucifer jiggled the keys impatiently and Ella took them, swinging herself into the driver’s seat with practiced ease. She inserted the key, smooth and gentle. She put the car into gear and toed the accelerator. The car revved warmly and Ella maneuvered from the tight parking space in a single fluid motion. She shifted gears like a pro and made speed so quickly the devil himself almost had to hold on to the seat.  
“Well,” said Lucifer  
But he was cut off by the sharp turn into an underground carpark, and again onto an access road for a department store and through a vacant lot. Then she made another sharp turn into a gas station entrance to avoid a set of traffic lights.  
“I’m impressed,” said Lucifer, a little windswept.  
Ella didn’t even drop speed. “Thanks.”

They arrived at the hospital barely half an hour after he’d left. It was the middle of the night but they’d let him in. She was still in the ICU. 

“She’s family,” Lucifer told the nurse as they passed her station. She looked momentarily like she wanted to argue but ultimately decided against it. Ella appeared enough like Trixie and Dan, but Lucifer was pushing it on the nurse's idea of a blended family already. 

“Daniel,” he said as he came in, nodding to the man slumped over on the chair, “child,” he added to Trixie. “Chloe,” he said quietly. Ella headed straight over to Trixie who had woken up as they entered and was sitting on a more comfortable chair on the opposite wall. 

Lucifer leaned down beside Chloe again. He could feel the churning in his gut that he felt every time Chloe was hurt or in danger. He had to take a deep breath before he slipped the feather from his pocket and placed it gently on her cheek, across the lurid purple bruising. 

*

Chloe suddenly felt she had to leave, as Mrs. Candy Morningstar paraded through in her pink heels. But there they were at the penthouse, a long banner hanging across the wall, emblazoned with - Happy Birthday - and the word Chloe crossed out. Lucifer handed a pile of gifts to Candy, who handed them obediently to everyone but her. But he stared at her. He kept looking and she was angry, but not for the reason he thought. She was about to tell him so when he spoke.  
“It wasn’t an accident,” said Lucifer, “I made a deal and now...”  
“Now what,” said Chloe, “I’m not surprised you think you can fool God. But you don’t get to hurt me just because you think it will keep me safe.” She shouted.  
“My father!” Thundered Lucifer. But the room went dark before he could finish.

In front of her now was a white spiral staircase. Pure white marble ascending into the empty sky. She began to drift up it. She knew she must be climbing the stairs but she couldn’t feel her feet or the force of her legs moving. The stairs gradually became a vast white field, thick with small white flowers.   
“Hello,” said a voice she recognized.  
“Dad?”  
“Hey, my little monkey.”  
John Decker stood there, just as she remembered him. He wore white linen and a gentle smile.  
“What’s troubling you monkey?”  
“I couldn’t catch your killer,” she said, “It’s my fault he got away, and now he’s gone.”  
“No one is ever gone,” He smiled wryly “You know where he is.”   
“But it’s not right,” she said  
“It’s done” smiled John Decker “You know monkey, you’re a good cop,” he said, “and do you remember what I said about good cops?”  
She didn't even have to think about it “One good cop can make all the difference?” She asked  
“That’s right” he said “and you’re making all the difference”  
He gave her a fond look and pushed her shoulders gently. She found herself falling in slow motion. 

She fell through miles of velvet darkness. She fell past distant stars twinkling their ancient light. She fell through galaxies as old as creation. She felt them reach out and touch, greet her like something that belonged, cradle her with familiarity.

The sky became bright and she landed softly on the gentle rays cast by Venus on the horizon. 

She wandered across the scrubby, vacant land in front of her until she arrived outside the precinct. Her mother was standing there.  
“Are you going?” she asked  
“Going where?” said Chloe  
Penelope Decker shook her head “my little miracle” she said  
Chloe felt oddly unsettled  
“Where’s Lucifer?”  
“He’s with the therapist, I think,” said Penelope.

Chloe stepped through the precinct's front door and returned to the long hallway. Determined, she walked straight through the next door, just as something large and threatening whooshed past behind her.

*

Lucifer watched as the white feather twinkled. It settled on her skin and appeared to sink. It dissolved like cotton candy in the rain. Lucifer held back. He wanted to put his hand over hers but if she was afraid of him, he couldn’t. 

He watched as a small cut on her lip closed. Her swelling shrunk back. He held his breath, but the bruising didn’t budge. She didn’t stir. It wasn’t enough.  
“No” he croaked, “no!”  
He startled Dan from his repose and Ella from her conversation with the spawn. Trixie looked over, startled too, and looking for the source of his outbreak.  
“Hey,” said Ella, walking over “She’s strong,” she said. She looked at Chloe and with the hand that wasn’t on Lucifer’s shoulder, she touched the cross at her neck.  
Trixie climbed back into Dan’s lap and he shuffled to hold her properly.  
“Hey monkey, we should go home now. Mommy’s just going to sleep for a while” said Dan “They will call us if anything changes and we’ll come straight back.”  
“No!” Shouted Trixie and a woman waiting by another bed peered at them through the open curtain.   
“What if I take you back to mine,” said Ella “and you can stay awake with me and play cards. Your dad will stay here and he’ll call me if anything at all changes, and I’ll drive you right back here.”   
Trixie looked between Ella and her mother, but she was clearly very tired and couldn’t sit in the hospital room much longer.  
“Fast as a race car?” Asked Trixie  
“Formula One,” said Ella, promising.  
Trixie nodded her head resignedly. She hugged her dad and kissed her mom on the cheek. Then she went to stand by Ella. Lucifer threw Ella the keys to his car and she took them without a fuss. Then Trixie doubled back and threw her arms around Lucifer, hugging him tightly for a moment before hurrying away.   
“Thanks,” said Dan, waving Ella off with an exhausted sigh. 

When the two of them were gone, Dan rubbed his face.  
“Jesus,” he said, “What am I going to do?”  
“You’ll figure it out,” said Lucifer mournfully.

It was beginning to sink in. Everything he had built felt meaningless. He had everything any man could desire and it was nothing. He thought about the sex, the drugs, the alcohol, and the music, and the clothes and the cars, and the VIP entries. He thought about the empire he ruled from his iniquitous nightclub. Not one bit of it enticed him and he felt more naked than he had ever felt before, which was insane of course because he’d been naked often. He supposed he would go back to hell. But what difference did it make where he was. Maybe he would stay here until Trixie was old enough to resent him.

*

Behind the door Chloe found Dr. Linda’s office, just as she’d seen it before and there was Linda tapping her pen on her notepad as Lucifer spoke. Again Lucifer’s face was red and scarred. His devil face as he had called it before. Curiously, Linda was wearing a neck brace and her left arm was in a sling, but she was otherwise chatting quite comfortably with the devil. 

Chloe couldn’t work out what they were saying. She was beginning to have trouble holding onto their voices. Lucifer was his typical animated self, but he sat cooperatively in the chair and never interrupted.

The room began to tilt a little. Lucifer turned around  
“and what do you believe?” He asked.  
“I believe in good and evil” said Chloe automatically, and Lucifer smiled “and which one am I?” He asked.  
Chloe began to feel dizzy and there was a thundering in her ears. The lights in the room were getting brighter and brighter.  
“Chloe?” Asked Linda, as though she had only just noticed her. She suddenly looked very serious.  
“Will you be joining us?” She asked.   
“I...” said Chloe, and she began to shudder. 

*

Sometime after Trixie and Ella had left, another doctor arrived. She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders and smoky eyes. She swept in and picked up the chart. A young nurse followed, handing her a needle and taking the clipboard. The doctor turned a dial on the drip and then picked up a tube and injected the needle.

She watched the lines and numbers on the monitor, checked her watch and waited. The young nurse scrawled on the chart. 

The doctor noticed Lucifer and Dan, and Lucifer noticed Dan’s eyes were puffier than earlier. He realized he had tears on his own cheeks too. The doctor looked at her watch again and frowned. She looked at the machine and she indicated to the nurse who handed her another needle, this one of a different colour. She was leaning over to insert the needle when she paused. There was a beep from one of the machines. She looked up. There was another beep. She looked at her watch again. 

Then at once, Dan practically jumped.   
“She moved!” he said  
Lucifer looked over at Dan, who was looking at Chloe’s right hand. The doctor said nothing, but checked the monitor once more and took out an instrument, which she held to Chloe’s face. The instrument was a small torch and she shuffled up next to Lucifer to shine it in Chloe’s eyes. 

Just then Chloe twitched again. This time her left hand jerked outwards, touching Lucifer’s arm. He stared. Then she started to shake. Just a little at first, then harder and harder.  
“Seizing!” Said the doctor, and the nurse hurried to prep another needle.  
“Move back!” Instructed the nurse, pointing to Dan.  
He jumped to his feet and moved out of the way.  
The nurse moved in.

But then it stopped.


	6. Part Two

Lucifer stood, watching as Chloe Decker's body stilled. His rigid silence a stark contrast to Dan’s panicked movements. Dan went for his phone, eyes wide like a caught fish. He would call his daughter and she wouldn’t come quickly enough. But Lucifer’s mind emptied of anything useful or relevant. He kept thinking of how the sunlight made her hair look like honey and he had to watch her now in the gaudy fluorescence of the hospital, looking like a wet mop laid out on a slab of a bed.

As the machines continued to alarm in her stillness, he was sure it was over. But even here she kept him guessing. Chloe moved. Then, in the next moment she was trying to turn her braced head. She was lifting both arms. She was feeling the tubes and wires and beginning to paw at them, struggling to breathe in the mask. With her brow scrunched in discomfort, she blinked once, twice, and then her eyes were open.  
“Chloe!” exclaimed Dan, letting his phone drop back into his pocket. But Lucifer just stood aside, watching. Chloe’s eyes began to focus and the doctor and the nurse busily checked machines and pressed buttons and made notes.  
“Chloe,” said Dan again, “Thank God.”  
Not this time, thought Lucifer, but he kept quiet in his relief as Chloe searched Dan’s face.  
“What happened,” she asked hoarsely. Then she looked around.  
As Lucifer was backing away, she saw him. Whatever Dan was saying, she wasn’t hearing him. Lucifer thought he had sent her into shock. He tried to hurry out the door, but again Chloe surprised him like only she ever could.  
“Lucifer,” She croaked, and she reached out a hand. He had to consciously shut his mouth, but even in his surprise, he didn’t need to be asked twice. He crossed the room in two strides, passed the doctor and pulled the chair close beside his detective. He took her reaching hand in his.   
“You’re alright,” he told her, and she actually smiled. It sent little electric sparks through his heavy chest. He marveled. She tried to speak, but he shook his head.  
“Rest,” he said, “just rest.”  
 He stroked her hand with his thumb, wondering if this was temporary. He didn’t care. She could fear him later. She was okay.

*

After that, the night was a rush. Doctors examined Chloe Decker with open curiosity. They asked her name and her age and who the president was. They hurried her off for another CT scan and they moved her to a private room. They deliberated in whispers outside in the hall and, after a time, they told Dan that there must have been some malfunction in their machines earlier. Either that or she was a miracle. The hemorrhage was completely gone. The fracture in her skull was healed up. Most of the contusions were still there but the broken ribs were neatly set and her collarbone showed no sign of the break it had suffered. After checking her over with more traditional methods and failing to hide their mad scramble to understand what had happened, they told her she would make a full recovery, and they left her to her healing.

Both Lucifer and Dan stayed with her until she was given the all-clear. Then Dan went to pick up Trixie from Ella’s place. The child had fallen asleep over a card game hours ago. Dan assured Chloe he would bring Trixie around in the afternoon when they’d all had a good rest. 

“You can go home, Lucifer,” Chloe told him when she finally had some peace.   
“Do you mind if I stay a little longer?” he asked.  
Chloe turned her head towards him on the pillow. It was now free from the brace.  
“Okay,” she yawned, and she drifted off to sleep.

Lucifer didn’t stay long. He just needed to assure himself that she was okay. After the shock of it all, she would remember why she sped away from him, but he wouldn’t be here when that happened. 

PART TWO

Linda kept a strange vigil at her office that night. The guardian human to an injured demon. She watched Mazikeen’s labored breathing loosen, her sharp edges soften as she let the weight of her long adjustment to the earthly plain sink into the leather.

That couch had seen so much pain and passion and fury; had absorbed the unholy tension of an eternity in purgatory. It occurred to Linda that the revelation of divinity had untangled its self too, here in the ear she had lent to the devil.

In knowing him, the vastness he had created in her mind had shrunken once again. She could write an incredible thesis on all of this, that no one would read of course. She thought on how what we call humanity seemed to be more universal. After all, she had seen a demon learn what every human grappled with through adolescence, and the devil himself, older than she could fully comprehend, had readily taken her advice on thoughts at once so immense and so commonplace that their proximity was absurd. 

The implications this had didn’t escape her. In the field of psychiatry alone there were hundreds of new threads to tug at. What did it mean that the devil’s thoughts could be mistaken for the thoughts of a traumatized man? Albeit, one who was somewhat emotionally stunted. 

She put the musings aside as she poured a glass from her pitcher of water and placed it beside her sleeping guest. Then she left a note. She needed to walk. Therapy for the therapist.

Linda put on a coat and locked her door. She tucked her keys in her pocket and headed out to the street. 

Although she played the picture of put together, Linda had never had a friend like Maze. In fact, she’d had few friends at all besides her troubled ex and a few mean girls she only saw at reunions. She wondered if anyone else would have allowed themselves to be dragged into all this. She wondered if her readiness to go above and beyond her job was in part due to her abysmal lack of a social life. She knew she had made some deeply questionable choices, and she didn’t believe the devil was to blame, even if he had made those poor choices easier. But ultimately, she couldn’t regret them because she felt lucky to be here today, with the strange but dedicated friends she now had.

The lamplight up ahead was dark and it obscured the entrance to an alley. It was chilly out and the breeze made wriggling shadows of the small sweetgums on the roadside. To be quite literally on the safe side, Linda crossed the street. She clasped her keys in her pocket and listened carefully to the echo of her footsteps as she continued past the empty mall parking lot and around the corner.

It was much later than she would usually walk but most of the route was through a well enough occupied part of town. It didn’t stop her looking over her shoulder though. She passed a diner with two or three lone customers. It spilled its yellow and red light onto the sidewalk and she hurried through the exposing luminance, only to crash on the other side. Linda was surprised as a figure appeared in the shadow beyond. She bumped right into him.  
“Oh, sorry love,” purred the familiar voice.   
“Lucifer?”  
“Doctor, what a surprise,” he said, “isn’t it a little late for a stroll?”  
“Sorry. I was just clearing my head. You know, Maze showed up at my office earlier, all bruised and in a panic.”  
“Ah, I did wonder where she got to. She’s alright then?”  
“You know Maze, she’ll be okay. But what about you? You look like you’ve been crying?”  
“Really?” said Lucifer, glancing into the diner window to check his reflection, “Yes well, I might need to move that session forward.”  
Seeing her concern, Lucifer waved her off.  
“It’s fine,” he said, “everyone’s safe, but the detective knows.”  
Well, Linda just nodded. She was probably the only person who could understand what that meant.  
“Anyway,” he said, “I best be getting back to Lux before they drink all the good whiskey.” He smiled disingenuously, and off he went.

Linda continued her walk, rounding the block to head back to the office building. She quickened her pace as a clock tower chimed but she tripped over a loose paver and dropped her phone from her pocket. As she leaned to pick it up, a movement on the concrete warned of an approach behind her. She spun around, ready to confront her attacker but whoever was there had side-stepped and before she could shout or decide which self-defense tactic was best suited to the situation, she was smelling ether on a damp rag and wondering if she didn’t regret her choices after all.


	7. In The Beginning

Chloe Decker awoke in the early afternoon to the hurried steps of Trixie on the hospital floor.  
Her daughter ran over, climbing into the chair that Lucifer had occupied the night before, and cautiously put her arms around her mother.   
“I love you mom!” Said Trixie.  
“I love you baby” Chloe said.  
Inwardly she just hoped her daughter would avoid developing a complex. Trips to the hospital were becoming far too common an occurrence.  
“Were you good for Ella?” She asked.  
“She was an angel,” said Ella, walking in the door and winking at Trixie. Dan followed with Coffee.   
“Decaf,” he said, placing one on the tray at Chloe’s bed.  
“I just came to drop this off,” said Ella, handing a stuffed penguin to a sheepish looking Beatrice. “And these,” she added with a smile. Ella turned around and pulled a bunch of big yellow flowers from a plastic bag. “I whipped round the office.”  
“Ella, you shouldn’t have.”  
“You,” Said Ella, shaking her head. “Of course I should have! It’s a boy’s club there without you, you know. Now I’m not saying don’t take your time, but you can’t use this as an excuse to get a safer job okay?” Ella joked. Chloe was glad to have someone like Ella around to lighten the mood. She loved Dan but he could be exhaustingly somber at times.   
“Ella taught me how to play poker!” chimed Trixie, sensing the rising mood.   
“Did she? Well, you’ll have to show me sometime.” Said Chloe.  
Dan shook his head and smiled.   
“Hey, listen, Ella,” said Chloe “I really appreciate your help.”   
“Anytime,” said Ella “this one’s got a natural poker face.” Here she prodded Trixie and Trixie giggled.  
“Watch out,” said Dan “we’ll take you up on that.”   
There was quiet for a time.  
“Have you seen Lucifer?” Chloe asked.  
“I would have thought he’d have been here all morning, the way he was last night,” said Ella.  
“Yeah, I should thank him for getting Trixie here so fast,”  Said Dan.  
Ella frowned. “He’s probably just looking for the biggest get well teddy bear money can buy, or stealing evidence maybe.”  
Chloe balked. “What?”  
“Oh, nothing” shrugged Ella.  
She let it go because the relief in the room was electric and she was tired. They drank their coffees and ran lines for Trixie’s play.  
“If you see him,” said Chloe as they finally left “tell him to visit.”  
“Will do” winked Ella. 

She thought about Lucifer. For a long time, it had been hard for Chloe to know where she stood with him. He ran hot and cold; one moment he disappeared, the next he made inappropriate propositions until she almost thought she’d take him up on them. His insecurity often seemed insurmountable and maybe this was too much and she couldn’t live her life waiting for him to get it together. He’d had an eternity to learn the few social graces he had and she didn’t have an eternity to teach him the rest of them. But she’d come to rely on him as a partner and a friend and she wasn’t giving that up now.

*

At the penthouse above Lux, Lucifer stroked the piano keys as he thought. He let an A ring as he drew on his library of songs. Tapping idly, he thought of the crackle of fire as his devil face returned, the pleasure he took in drawing out Caine’s guilt, the crunch of his top-shelf whiskey bottles smashed on marble floor. He leaned in to stairway to heaven.

Walking into Lux, after everything, had felt surreal. As usual, the bar manager had opened, security was on the door, his patrons were drowning in excess as the small hours dwindled. As his elevator closed and the soundproofing worked it’s magic, the quiet chaos of the last 24 hours worked its way back to the front of his mind; carried by the emptiness of his spacious living quarters, by the starkness of the debris against the ordered opulence of his modern meets classical design. 

Now Chloe would look at his life and his deeds and the stories they told of him, and she would judge him. What would she find? He didn’t make a habit of thinking of the past, not really. Dwelling in it wasn’t the same.

Lucifer knew the story he told, what he stuck to. He wanted only freedom and was cast into hell by his own father. He was a punisher of evil, by the design of dear old dad, but he wasn’t evil. He didn’t make Caine kill his brother. He didn’t make any human do a thing they did. But if he was honest, and now it was time to be, there was a lot more to it than that. He needed to start at the beginning.

*

When Lucifer was born he was given the highest of gifts. His intellect was unrivaled, his beauty unparalleled. But he didn’t know this. He was his father's first emissary and closest protector and for the longest time, he stood beside the throne in the splendor of the silver city. 

But one day God decided to create something new. He decided out of the blue as if it were as easy as breathing. But he did not create one new thing, he created many. For each creature, another with whom they could discover all the pleasures that God had given them.  Lucifer looked with new eyes on his place beside the throne. He wondered for the first time about his purpose.  If he was to exist here with only his siblings for company, why did he surpass them in his wit and intelligence so that he would tire of them? If he was to walk behind his father into every new morning and never leave his side, then why was he made with physical form. Why could he feel the softness of sand beneath his feet if he was never to desire the pleasure of walking on the ground? 

Lucifer watched closely the two humans, like angels without wings, how they looked into each other instead of only up at God, and how they looked out onto the land with a desire to claim it. So far only his father had claimed dominion over anything but here he said to his creations that all he had made was theirs and they desired it. They desired things beyond God. Lucifer wondered why his father would create creatures with the power and the will to defy him, so one day he asked.  
“Father, why do you give these humans all that they desire? They have no duty but to exist.  What is their purpose?”  
God smiled at Lucifer and told him that humans were perfect and beautiful and they would create, just like him.   
“So you give them a God’s power?” Asked Lucifer “You give them dominion over the earth without testing them?” And it was fair of Lucifer to ask this because it was his duty to protect God.  
“They are perfect my son,” Said God and Lucifer thought on it. He thought about the soft sand on the shores of earth’s oceans.  
“You give them everything they desire,” said Lucifer “But what if they had a reason to go against you? What if they didn’t have everything they wanted?” He asked “would they remain so perfect then? Would they not defy you?”  
“And what would you offer them, my son?” Asked God.  
Lucifer thought about his tiresome conversations with his siblings, how quickly they became circular when he exhausted the reach of their intellect.   
“Knowledge,” said Lucifer “offer them the knowledge to look beyond their simple existence. You give them such freedom, they will want to know what more there is.”  
“Very well,” Said God, and he placed a single seed in Lucifer’s hand. “Plant this in the garden and when it bears fruit we will see.”

In three summers the tree bore its first fruit and God sent Lucifer to deliver a message to his creations. When he appeared, they looked upon him with awe and reverence. They gazed up at him and dropped to their knees. They looked on him as they looked on God. Lucifer had never been the subject of such admiration. He smiled down at the humans and he felt their desire to reach out and touch him.  
“God, your creator, wishes you to know that you are free to do as you please and take what you please, and go where you please,” he said, and they kept looking at him with that awe in their eyes, “Your will is free” he said, “But there is one rule. You must not eat the apple of this tree.” Here he paused, waiting for their curiosity to peak, waiting for their eyes to stray, waiting for the questions. But there was nothing. Their dumb little faces just peered at him, as if he was the forbidden fruit. He saw himself reflected in their eyes and he wondered if they were right. What would happen if he let these mortals taste of his flesh? Instead, he touched the apple of the tree softly and spoke to the humans again. “This fruit, if you bite it, will give you knowledge. It will allow you to see beyond your simple existence” he said. Still, they knelt before him. For their longing eyes, he gave a flourish, as he spread his mighty wings. He heard them gasp as he took off. It sent a strange feeling through him. A small thrill he had never felt. He returned to the side of the throne, sure that the humans would take the fruit once he was gone.

As the fruit-bearing season came towards its end, God called on Lucifer “You see, my son, they are perfect” said God, “just like all my creations, perfect.”   
Lucifer thought again of the sand. If he too was perfect, why did he think of what it would feel like beneath his feet? So, Lucifer returned to the garden.

The tree was untouched and the humans continued to bathe in the streams and lay in the sunlight and eat the other, less forbidden, foods of the land. They seemed happy together, so he waited for them to be occupied by different pursuits and approached the woman alone. He knew she would not betray God in front of his emissary, so he disguised himself as a lesser creature. He just wanted to know why they did not want the knowledge that they could so freely take. He did not want the humans to betray his father. He only wanted to test them truly. 

“Eve?” he said and she looked at him without surprise, for she had no reason to doubt any creature placed here by God.  
“I have just seen the most wonderful fruit,” he said, “let me share it with you.”  
“I shall get Adam,” said Eve.  
“No, dear woman,” said Lucifer “Adam is busy picking berries, I have just seen him.”  
“Oh,” said Eve and she followed Lucifer as he approached the tree.  
“But this is the tree of knowledge,” said Eve. “I can’t eat this fruit. It has been forbidden.”  
“But why?” asked Lucifer.  
“It does not matter why,” she said.  
“Aren’t you curious?” he asked “Don’t you want to know why it is forbidden? Why would he give you all this and every fruit you could wish for except this one?”  
“There is plenty of fruit in the garden,” said Eve, turning away.  
“But none like this,” said Lucifer, “Come now, this fruit has been made by God. He does not even appear to you himself and yet you have faith in him. He sends emissaries with his messages. How do you know they carry his word? God himself has not told you this fruit is forbidden. Why would he place it here in your garden and then forbid you from it?”

It seemed this was too much for Eve. In the beginning, she was only simple. She did not understand what this creature was saying to her. She did not know what consequences awaited. Lucifer picked a ripe fruit from the tree and held it out to her. He was not in his true form now but he gave a small flourish to impress her, as he did when he had spread his wings and flown, and she took a step towards him.  
“Take what you desire,” he said, “and you will see what more there is to life.”  
Eve took another step, reached out her hand, and touched the fruit. Lucifer smiled and Eve looked him in the eye as she lifted it to her lips, and took a bite.


	8. Eden

Mazikeen awoke on the doctor’s couch. Her head was pounding and she looked around for something to drink. There was a glass of water on the table and she downed it in one. She should probably thank Linda for this.   
“Linda!” She shouted, “Linda?”  
But there wasn’t any reply. She got up and looked around and couldn’t see her. She was just coming back to the couch to sit down and pull out her phone when she saw the note: 

Out for a walk. Help yourself to food - Linda.

“Oh,” Maze shrugged and went to raid the pantry. She was pretty hungry, but after pulling everything out of the cupboard and finding only oats, teabags and crackers, along with canned vegetables and other boring not-food things, she decided she’d go out for breakfast. There was a diner down the street that did a nice greasy fry up, and that was exactly what she needed now. 

She wandered into the diner and ordered a big breakfast and a stack of pancakes. She covered it all with sauce and syrup and she set to work devouring it. This was the best. Maybe she would get some to take back to Linda. She couldn’t imagine how Linda would survive on the meager supplies in her cupboard.

But, as she finished her meal and dropped her napkin onto her plate her cell rang.   
“What?” she answered. On the other end of the call was someone from the police department. They had a job for her. She had to go in and get the files now if she wanted it. She licked her fingers and wiped her hands on her pants, throwing some cash on the table and heading out the door.  
“I’ll be there,” she said and she hung up. 

*

Lucifer wondered what would have happened if he had stopped there. If he had gone to his father then. But he did not. He transformed from the lesser creature. He assumed an approximation of his true form, but wingless, human, not radiant with divine light, but still Eve stared at him with open desire. Still his beauty was enough to captivate her entirely. She licked the juice from her lips and reached out to touch him.  
“Do you feel different?” He asked  
“No,” she said, “I feel no different.”  
She looked thoroughly confused and she dropped the apple to the earth. “Why would God forbid me to eat this fruit that is like any other?”  
“Indeed,” said Lucifer, smiling at that lust for knowing. He held her face between his hands.  
“Isn’t it cruel?” he said “to show you what you are forbidden to have”  
“It is cruel,” she said, looking into his eyes. She put her hands on him, as he had seen her do to Adam and as she touched him he felt a heat growing inside him. He felt his own desire to touch, and so he did. He kept touching. He felt new thrills and feelings he was unfamiliar with as they lay together beneath the tree. He felt these things over and over again until he heard a sound across the glade. Adam had returned.  
“Who are you?” Asked Adam. “God gave Eve to me, why would he send another?”  
“Gave her to you? She’s not something you can possess, my dear Adam.”  
Adam was looking Lucifer up and down. He had a strange look in his eyes that Lucifer did not recognize. Something told him that look was bad news, but he did not want his new feelings to end.   
“Join us,” he told Adam, “If having one to touch is good then two must be better,” he said, and he was curious himself. Adam was hesitant, but when Eve held her hand out to him he came to them.   
For a short time, Lucifer came each night to the garden. He discovered all manner of pleasures there; things he had seen but never been given cause to touch. In exchange for these encounters, although he was sure they got the better end of the bargain, he taught the humans many things about heaven and earth and the way of the universe. He even convinced some of his brothers and sisters to come to the garden and sample its delights. 

Then, on the day the last fruit began to rot, Lucifer returned to his father.  
“You have been busy Samael”  
“Your perfect creations ate the forbidden fruit,” he said.   
“Indeed,” Said God, not giving away a bit of his feeling about it. “Your mother believes I should wipe them from existence.”  
Lucifer said nothing.  
“She has never understood why I made them.”  
“Why did you make them?” Asked Lucifer. If God could shake his head he would have then.  
“I expected better of you, my brightest star.”  
“Father,” said Lucifer, but he was interrupted.  
“I have sent one of your older brothers to escort them from the garden. If they wish to live beyond my reach, then they must also live beyond my care. The first of their offspring will be born outside the garden.”  
“Offspring?” Asked Lucifer  
“As I said, humans can create. Their physical union creates new life. All lesser creatures will have this power, and because they will no longer live in my garden, the woman will carry the child inside her while it is small and weak, until it can survive on its own ”  
“Their union?” he asked, and God looked on him coolly.  
“Yes,” he said, “now leave me.”

All of that had given Lucifer a lot to think about. Why did his father seem so angry at him? He didn’t force the humans to eat the fruit. He had not ruined his father’s perfect creations. Not that they could have been perfect if they had chosen the wrong path, and yet he did not see what was so wrong about the path they had chosen. They used the free will that his father, in all his brilliance had decided to give them. They wanted to know why they had been given so much and at the same time so little. They were forced to stay close by him, in opulence, yes, but without true freedom, without the knowledge or the power to choose their own desires, and now they would wander the almost baron earth without his care. But perhaps they didn’t need it. They were given the power to create after all; the power of a god and It was here Lucifer became stuck as he had not before. Did his father not make his creations gods too, in giving them his power? Here he recalled the birth of his youngest sibling. She had been small and fragile at first, a glowing ember that shuddered to life slowly, coaxed by her parents. How Amenadiel had paraded around the silver city in his duties, clearing the way when the doting parents came through. He thought of the new human life and although he did not know how a human would create another, he imagined it would be small and weak and would need the help of others. Then he thought on its creation, through a physical union. The pleasures of the garden he had been sampling. Perhaps he had done something to affect his father’s creations after all. Perhaps the child was his own.

*

Chloe was let out of the hospital late that afternoon, her bouquet of yellow flowers having barely touched the water in their vase. The doctors stalled and tested. She was poked and prodded more than she thought was reasonable, but eventually, their need for beds won the war against their curiosity. They had to chalk it up to a technical error and thin blood. No one was calling it a miracle, but Chloe was pretty sure she could guess what had happened. She left the depressingly bland hallways, with what Lucifer might describe as almost criminally inoffensive artwork, and she took her first steps into the warm LA air. Her mother had come to town in time to pick her up and they walked through the slowly silhouetting powerlines and palm trees to her car. But when they got there, Chloe found herself unable to climb into the passenger seat.   
“Honey, what’s wrong?” asked her mom. But Chloe found she couldn’t say. Penelope eyed the vehicle. “Of course, honey we don’t have to drive just yet,” she said. “There’s a burger joint a couple of blocks away. Why don’t we go and have an early dinner before we take you home?”  
Chloe sighed. She felt foolish. She’d been shot more than once and she still went to work every day catching criminals. She should be able to get into a car.  
“I am a little hungry,” she said.  
“Who can blame you?” said her mom, “The amount that hospital charges, you would think they could spring for better food.”

The pair of them made their way to Tommy’s avoiding anything but light conversation. They sat in a booth eating greasy burgers and chili fries and Chloe felt like she might laugh. There was something oddly nostalgic about it, like she was a kid having a post-audition treat. Of course, now as a mother, she knew it had been less of a treat and more of a necessity on days her mom hadn’t left time to cook or bring home groceries and her dad had been working double shifts.

“So,” said Penelope, “are you still working with that charming Lucifer fellow?” She raised her eyebrows.  
“Chloe sighed again.” It was just like her mom to ask poignant questions she knew nothing about.   
“I am. He saved my life actually, just before the accident.” She had reason to believe he had saved her life after the accident too, but there was no point going into that. She had just left a hospital, she didn’t need to be committed to another one.  
“Well,” said Penelope “seems like I should be buying him chili fries. Or is he more of a lobster kind of man?”  
Chloe laughed “No actually, I’m sure chili fries would be perfect.”  
“Well where is he then?” she asked.  
“I don’t know,” said Chloe, “I thought he would visit.”  
“Well, I’ve found men don’t take genuine gratitude too well.” Penelope smiled. “You’ll probably need to go to him.”  
“Yeah,” said Chloe. But she wasn’t ready yet. Perhaps she would take his advice for once and go see Linda, maybe not as a therapist but definitely as the only friend who had enough context to understand what she was thinking.  
“Well, let’s get you home,” said Penelope. “I’m sure you’re missing a nice shower and your own bed.” So, the two women walked back to the car and Chloe found she could climb into it now. The ride home was short and her mother drove uncharacteristically well all the way. She was sure she wouldn’t be comfortable behind the wheel again yet, but this was okay.

*

When Lucifer had thought that the child might be his, he had felt oddly elated. He supposed it was like finding he had the power of a god. Knowing that his brother had already escorted the humans from the garden, Lucifer flew to the desert-like land that they would certainly have been released into. He found it unlike he had expected. It was vast and certainly baron in places, but there were all kinds of creatures there in the dirt; strange ones that he could only assume were other rejects his father had created. In his search for the humans, he found a number of almost human creatures. He tried to communicate with them but he found them lacking the spark that he had seen in humanity. While they walked upright and spoke in simple language, they did not possess the symmetrical features or strong bodies of Adam and Eve.

He was beginning to tire of his search when he saw a figure on a hilltop. It was certainly a human and a woman at that. But as he approached he could see that it was very much not Eve. He was perplexed by this because he did not know his father had ever created another human. He landed beside her.  
“Are you a daughter of Eve?” He asked and she looked at him in surprise.  
“I am not,” she said. “Are you an emissary of God?”  
Lucifer shook his head. “I am not. At least not anymore.”  
“Well then,” said the woman “perhaps you and I have something in common. My name is Lilith.”  
Lucifer looked her up and down. She had the same perfect features as Adam and Eve, perhaps even more perfect. She had long, dark hair and her eyes were sharp with a wisdom that Eve’s did not possess.   
“Did my father create you?” he asked. She looked him up and down.  
“You are an angel?”  
“Yes,” said Lucifer.  
“Then yes. I am God’s creation. But God believed me broken. I am imperfect and dangerous and he sent me out here to suffer.”  
“But he created you,” said Lucifer “and he gave you free will.”  
“Well, perhaps he did not expect me to use it.”  
“So you don’t know Adam and Eve then?” asked Lucifer.  
“Adam? I know Adam. He was supposed to be my mate. But Adam only cares for himself.”  
“So God got rid of you and made a more subservient woman to replace you?” asked Lucifer. But he spoke before she could reply “Of course. He made Adam in his image so he must have made you like mom. Then when mom wants a little more attention he can’t replace her so he just kicks you out instead. Thank you, Lilith, you’ve been a big help. I’ll send one of my brothers to collect you and we will sort this out.”

So Lucifer returned to heaven to confront his father. He sent out the siblings who he had let into the garden, asking them to collect Lilith and to find Adam and Eve and he went to God. God sat on his throne next to his wife. He had the cool derision in his appearance that he sometimes had after fighting with mother. Lucifer spoke to him.  
“Father,” said Lucifer “your creations are not perfect. You can’t just give up on them because they are not what you expected”  
“Do you sit on this throne?” Asked God.  
“No. But father...”  
He was interrupted. God’s voice thundered “I ask you, son, do you sit on this throne? Are humans your creation?”  
This angered Lucifer. He would not create a creature only to have them suffer. He would not pretend to offer everything but deny them the simplest knowledge, the feel of the sand under their feet.  
“What about the child?” He asked.   
“I would not allow new life to come of you! The child is of Adam. What twisted creature would you spawn of your corruption! Humanity would not survive it! Now it seems that you wish to claim this throne. You wish to shape existence in your own image. You who are tasked with protecting me, rally my own sons against my word!”   
“You make it sound like some kind of uprising,” said Lucifer, the first notes of uncertainty creeping into his voice.  
“Is it not?” Asked God. “Do you not wish to supplant my orders and actions?”  
“Father” he begged, and he looked to his mother. She appeared saddened but lowered her gaze.  
“You wish for dominion so dearly?” asked God “Then I will give you a place for it and you will rule over all those who have been corrupted. You will live in the mire of guilt and punishment until you see fit to punish yourself!” He shouted, and before Lucifer could question his rage or his meaning a huge, sucking hole appeared at his feet.

Thus begun his fall, quite literally. He tumbled through a vortex of dimensions and space. He fell into the atmosphere and he crashed through and through the earth, where at its molten pit he burned and burned and when he was scorched through he looked around and found himself in a rocky hallway, never-ending and maze-like. Heavy chained doors open and waiting, gravity and magnitude crushing and distorting around him. As the agony subsided at last to numbness, for the first and last time for many millennia, he cried. 

The few siblings he had earlier encouraged to aid him had fallen too, although they became spiteful and distant and twisted beyond recognition. It was Lilith and later her children, who Lucifer became close to in hell. Mazikeen among them.

The rest was history, of course. Over the years that followed he visited earth many times, and each time he visited, Amenadiel would show up to escort him back to his place. Lucifer knew that God’s voice grew fainter and his messages more oblique, and his children more distant. He could see the frustration brewing in Amenadiel from the time their mother was banished. He used that frustration for his own means many times. He teased and baited his brother for more time on earth, more news of the silver city, or just a little more time speaking to someone who knew him. Lucifer was not solely to blame for the fall of humanity or of his brother or in some ways God’s. But perhaps it had been naive and obstinate of him to claim no part in it. Just as it had been ignorant of his father to claim no part in the failings of his creations.


	9. Waiting For Godot

After a shower and change and a quick dessert of chocolate brownies and vanilla ice cream, that Trixie declared her second favorite food, Chloe asked her mother to babysit for a while. She wasn’t tired and she didn’t think she would sleep when she still needed answers. She needed to see Linda.

After kissing Trixie good night and promising she wasn’t going anywhere dangerous, she took an Uber to Linda’s complex. The driver greeted her in a somewhat put-on American accent. He sported a turban with an American flag print and his long beard was gathered in a hair tie.   
“Howdy, Chloe?”,   
“Yeah.”  
“How are you tonight?”  
Chloe didn’t really feel like making small talk but she didn’t want to offend the guy.   
“I’m fine, uh Sanjeeb?” She read without confidence. “How has your night been so far?”  
He laughed. “Almost got it mam, nice pronunciation. You can call me Sam, just like Uncle Sam” He said, air quotes almost visible in his jovial voice. “You’re my first job tonight. I’ve just come from temple.” His voice dropped a little at the end as if he had said something wrong and Chloe felt bad.  
“Oh,” she said, “is your temple near here?” She tried to make her voice sound friendly and curious.  
“Robertson Boulevard,” he said, perking up. “Have you ever been to a Sikh temple? Although we call them Gurdwara, which means doorway to God.”  
“No,” said Chloe, “Religion hasn’t been much a part of my life.” She considered “until recently.”  
“Oh?” He said, “Have you found God?”  
She laughed, then decided she may as well tell him. She realized it didn’t matter if a stranger in an Uber thought she was crazy.  
“The devil actually,” she said.  
He glanced at her and then thought for a moment.  
“In my religion, we don’t have a devil. But we do have something like demons, creatures of ego.” He said. “They are incapable of fighting their desires. All the time they take take take.”  
“And what would you do,” asked Chloe “if you met a demon?”  
The driver was quiet again for a moment.   
“It is not my place to pass judgment,” he said “I’ve gotta fight my own ego and trust in God’s will. We come across all kinds of people. Some’ll test us and tempt us and some’ll help us to be stronger and maybe we’ll help others become stronger as well. We are all here on earth together aren’t we?”   
Chloe smiled “Aren’t children basically just driven by ego?” She asked, “Does that make them demons?”  
He laughed “My son is three. He does what he wants. Maybe children are not demons, but perhaps demons are like children.”  
“That makes a lot of sense actually,” said Chloe, thinking of Maze.  
“Do you have children?”  
“One. She’s nine.”  
“Ah,” said the driver “then you know all about that.”  
The pair of them chuckled. They pulled up at her destination.  
“Is here good?” He asked.  
“Perfect,” said Chloe “Thanks, Sam.”  
“I enjoyed our conversation, Chloe,” he said. “Five stars for you and good luck with your demon.”  
“Same to you” she joked and she closed the door and gave him a wave.

She found her way to the right door and knocked. There was no answer.  
“Linda,” she called “it’s me. I know it’s after hours, I just really need to talk.” Nothing. Maybe she was out on a date or something. But it wasn’t like Linda not to respond to her text. Chloe looked at her phone again. Still nothing. “Sorry,” called Chloe, “I’ll come by some other time.” She knew it was silly to feel put out. Linda might have said her door was always open but she had a life too. As she went to turn around though she caught sight of something disconcerting. There was a red smudge across the door frame. Years as a homicide detective had trained her for moments like these and that was definitely blood. Chloe lifted her hand to knock again but hesitated. Her mind began to war with its self but, thinking it was her friend and she could always replace the door if she was wrong, Chloe decided. She took a step back and kicked the sweet spot beneath the handle. She hit where the locking mechanism was but It took two kicks. Some newer doors were like that.

Chloe rushed in. She had no gun with her and she hadn’t called for backup, but she knew there was unlikely to be anyone there unless, well, she didn’t want to think about it. 

It was a mess inside. She checked the other rooms then looked around at the state of the place. There were bloody cotton balls heaped into the wastepaper basket and wrappings from band-aids on the table. The first aid kit lay open on the desk next to a bottle of antiseptic, and an empty glass sat on the couch. The pantry doors were left open and the contents covered the countertop. A box of teabags was upended. 

Chloe tried calling Linda again and heard a buzz coming from under the table. Linda’s purse was there and in it was her phone. It was time to call this in.

*

Ella was just packing up to head home when a head poked into her office. The bubbly and oddly considerate woman she only knew as Detective Friendly had leaned in.  
“Miss Lopez, I’m sorry, you’re being requested specifically on a scene.” She said it with genuine apology. No one was that nice.  
“What? By who?”  
“Detective Decker” She chirped electronically, doing some kind of impression Ella didn’t recognize.   
“Huh? Okay, sure. Thanks.” She said and waved off the overly polite detective. Chloe wasn’t supposed to be back at work, she’d just gotten out of hospital. But Ella supposed you couldn’t keep a good cop down. She’d better go and see what Chloe had dug up, and see if she couldn’t get the good detective to take a break for herself.

Ella took the elevator to basement level and wound the familiar path through the cruisers to her usual parking spot. Her red convertible firebird was parked neatly next to Detective Friendly’s motorbike. What an obnoxious parking bay buddy to have. It was usually only captains who brought bikes to work She shook her head.   
“Come on old girl,” said Ella, patting the firebirds hood affectionately. “We have a case to crack.” She revved the engine listening for any unusual ticks since she had restored it, and she wondered about the paintwork. Maybe red was too much for rocking up at crime scenes in. But she could always park down the block. 

*  
Chloe spoke to the cops on duty, who didn’t seem to think there was much cause for concern. It definitely looked suspicious, but there was nothing to suggest Linda was missing or hurt, according to them. It was frustrating being on the other side of things.   
“We’ll do what we can.” Said the uniformed officer. His name was Paul. She remembered the cake they’d had when his son was born. and she remembered giving the same lines to people before she made detective.  
“Call around and see when people saw her last. If it’s been more than twenty-four hours we’ll make a missing person report.”  
She bit down the urge to tell him she knew all that and tried to remember what it was like just running lines off at people.  
“Thanks, Paul,” she said.

Ella arrived on scene with her usual pizzazz.   
“Chloe!” She greeted, throwing her arms around her. “Out of hospital and straight into work huh? Wait, is this a therapist’s office? Did you come here for therapy? Because you know you can talk to me. I mean, it’s fine if you want to see a professional but...”  
“Ella...” Chloe tried to interrupt  
“Or maybe you were here to see a friend! Is this? Is Linda okay?”  
“I don’t know,” said Chloe.  
Ella wrapped her arms around her again.   
“Don’t worry Chloe, we’ll figure this out.”  
“Yeah. Maybe don’t tell them you know her, I mean, I can’t work this one so I’d really like you on it at least.”  
“Aw, Thanks Chlo. Of course, yeah.”

Chloe hovered as Ella examined the scene. She felt a bit useless, knowing her objectivity was limited. She looked at the mess and thought -Linda isn’t the kind of person to leave a place like this-, but that was the problem with personal connections. People always thought they knew those around them. They did of course, in a way, but it was natural for people to compartmentalize their lives. The Linda Chloe knew and the Linda that was at home alone in the evening were probably very different people. Chloe was a good character witness but you don’t complete a puzzle with one piece. Ella finished snapping photos and was pulling cotton balls out of the bin with tweezers. Chloe had the uncomfortable feeling of being both hopeful that Linda would walk in totally fine, and terrified that she would return to an overly cautious cop friend tearing apart her apartment for no reason.   
“There’s no sign of a struggle,” said Ella. “Someone was definitely hurt pretty badly, but it looks like they were hurt somewhere else. It’s odd too, the place doesn’t look ransacked. If they were looking for something they must have found it in the first place they were looking.”  
“Which means they knew where to look,” added Chloe. “I mean, I’m not crazy though right? This looks suspicious.”  
Ella looked around the room. “I know I’m supposed to be objective here, but Linda would never go out without her phone. She told me once that she took a call from a client on her wedding day, right before she walked down the aisle. But it doesn’t look like she was dragged out of here by force.” Ella shrugged.  
“So maybe someone she knew showed up here, hurt, and she left with them in a hurry?” Chloe theorized.  
“She could have taken them to the hospital,” said Ella.  
“No,” said Chloe. “Her car’s here and I already rung around the hospitals. No one through emergency that fits her description.”  
“Really?” Ella grinned “No attractive blonde women through the emergency rooms in LA?”  
“Well, I was more descriptive than that,” said Chloe. “Besides, Linda’s pretty well known around the hospitals. She does inpatient visits for suicide watch.”  
Ella tapped her chin with the handle of the tweezers in thought. Chloe was racking her brain for something. She’d tried Maze’s cell but she was off after a bounty and didn’t answer. The only person she hadn’t checked in with was Lucifer.  
“Hey Ella, do you mind if I ask you some more faith questions?” Asked Chloe. Ella looked surprised but seemed to come to some reason Chloe might be asking.  
“Sure, any time.”  
“Is now good?” Asked Chloe  
“Fire away,” said Ella, sealing the evidence bag full of cotton balls.  
“So, the devil,” she said “what did he actually do? You know, according to the bible.”  
“You mean if he was real?”  
“Yeah, if he was real.”  
“Well,” said Ella, “the bible is actually kind of vague about all that and you know, the Old Testament is full of overly dramatic monologuing written in, well, biblical times. It can be pretty hard to decipher. It says he convinced the first humans to eat the forbidden fruit, the original sin. Then he had some kind of rebellion. It doesn’t really go into detail about how he did it. It implies that he wanted to be God but history is written by the victors right? So they have some kind of fight, him and the big man. I don’t know if it’s like a celestial punch-up or just a shouting match. Either way, it’s not that different to an evening with my abuela. Anyway, God casts him out and sends him to hell as a kind of punishment.” Ella shrugs.  
“That’s it?” Asked Chloe, wondering what she actually expected. “So if he’s real, it’s just a bit of family drama?”  
“Well, yeah,” said Ella. “I mean, there was also the whole thing with Job where God and the devil made a bet and that ends up getting like ten people killed. But I’m not sure about that one. I mean, it’s a little contradictory because it was after the devil had fallen and he was supposed to be totally cut off from God at that point right? Plus that was really on both of them. But I don’t think that story is about evil or the devil. I think that story is meant to teach us that we can’t understand God’s intentions and plans and we shouldn’t claim to know why things are the way they are. Like when people claim that hurricanes are because of the gays or something. That’s just ego talking and the whole point of following God’s word is to be good and ignore your ego when it tries to lead you astray and it will because, in the story, even God has an ego. He boasts to the devil that his follower is so good he can’t be corrupted.”  
Ella finished packing up and Chloe pondered. “So why do people hate the devil then?” She asked.  
“Well, I can only give you my interpretation,” said Ella “He’s described as the enemy of God or as the seducer or the deceiver. I don’t think that necessarily means he has to be our enemy, but I guess he’d be the kind of person who makes it hard to ignore your desires.”  
Here Chloe snorted.  
“But he does run hell. I mean torturing people, even evil people, is pretty crappy.”  
“That’s kind of what we do,” said Chloe. “I mean we lock up the bad guys, pass judgment.”  
“Huh,” said Ella. “I guess we do. I’d like to think we try to rehabilitate them, but our prison system still needs work.”  
Chloe could admit she tried not to think about that.  
“Alright,” said Ella, “I think we’re done here.”  
Chloe pulled out her phone. “Great,” she said “then it’s time to call Lucifer.”

*

Lucifer was wallowing. He would be three sheets to the wind if he were a little more mortal. As it was he was almost comfortably numb and watching wife swap on YouTube. He had been enjoying it until he got to an episode where a fundamentalist Christian woman moved in with a bunch of pseudo-Pagans. Unlike Constantine and the Romans though, they didn't begrudgingly unite to create Catholicism from the two faiths. Instead, the Christian woman became aggressively fearful of the so-called heathens and the Pagan family pretended to be tolerant while espousing the open and peaceful nature of their pseudo-Pagan belief system. He wasn't sure what was more frustrating; the obnoxious reverence for his father, the indoctrination of the children or the idea that making colorful astrology maps would bring them some kind of spiritual peace. He was about to skip the episode when his phone began to buzz in his breast-pocket. His stomach fluttered uncomfortably as he briefly hoped it would be Chloe and then quickly told himself it wouldn't. So he was surprised and almost suddenly giddy when he saw the caller ID.  
"Detective?" He answered tentatively.  
"Lucifer," said Chloe's voice on the other end. She actually sounded relieved.  
"Are you okay?"  
There was a pause. "I'm fine," She said, "Is Linda with you?"  
"The doctor?" he asked, "No, why would you ask that?" He heard Ella's voice in the background asking when he had seen her.  
"When did you last..."  
"Not since before everything," he said. There was a pause again.  
"Linda's missing," said Chloe "I need your help."  
"Of course," said Lucifer, putting down his glass and closing the laptop he was using. "I'll be there right away."  
"I'll be at the station," said Chloe "and Lucifer,"  
"Yes?"  
"I know why you didn't visit me this afternoon and it's fine, but I would have been happy to see you."


	10. Swings and Roundabouts

Lucifer felt lighter than a single angelic feather. If he were prone to such flights of fancy he might have imagined floating all the way to the precinct. Of course, he was concerned about Doctor Linda, but she was probably fine. She’d no doubt gone off-grid for a bit of a break from the endless human prattle she dealt with from her other clients. Assurance that Chloe actually wanted to see him was easily suppressing any other considerations. He’d been so ready for rejection that he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the feeling but he knew he couldn’t ignore having disappeared on her again, even if it was only an afternoon. He never went in for hallmark occasions really, and there was no point in a get well card now, but he did feel the need to offer a gift; nothing too flashy, just a token to say he was thinking of her.

There wasn’t much open between Lux and the precinct. The outlet mall would be open for another half hour or so but those places were almost as depressing as hospitals and only marginally more commercial. He stopped outside a diner where the dinner rush was still in full swing. Customers chewing on greasy burgers and sucking down milkshakes were stuffed into most of the booths and the neon signs in the windows were a gaudy pronouncement of the kind of low-cost establishment it was. As he peered in, he saw one of those game machines with the mechanical claw. He was about to go and test his skill when something in the reflection caught his eye. On the wall behind him, a familiar piece of graffiti read PAUL SUX BIG and was followed by a rather poorly drawn phallus. For a moment it’s familiarity was so perplexing, he wondered if he’d seen it in a dream. But then he remembered. He’d been walking by this very diner, thinking of ways to convince the detective he was harmless, at least to her, when he was shaken from his contemplations by a shoulder to the chest and a head to the chin. He had completely forgotten his encounter with Doctor Linda Martin.  
“Oh,” he said out loud, wracking his brain for the foggy details. He pulled his phone out. He’d never forgotten an encounter before. Or at least he didn’t think he had. Now he was going to have to reconsider his recent history. What other things had he forgotten? When did it start? Was it something his father had done? Or was it something else? Then again, he’d have time to consider the meaning later and since Linda hadn’t seemed at all like she was about to drop off the radar for a while he was beginning to worry.  
“Detective,” he said when she answered the phone “I did see her. She bumped right into me. Don’t know how I forgot.”  
Chloe sounded almost suspicious on the other end but said nothing about it. She agreed to meet him there.  
Lucifer gave Chloe his location and she told him she was on her way. 

In the meantime, he hit the diner and perused the plush animals in the machine. He couldn’t do much without the detective after all. He didn’t know where to start. There was a cartoon rabbit in a police vest laying face up and it seemed suitably cute and relevant. He turned towards the counter. The exhausted-looking teenager behind the till was wearing a blue apron and a name tag that said Paul. He was pimply, like any teenager and had quiffed hair of the kind that was popular with hipsters.  
“Excuse me.”  
The boy peered around the room a moment before giving Lucifer a perplexed look.   
“Yes, here,” said Lucifer impatiently. “How much for the stuffed rabbit?” He asked.   
The boy looked from Lucifer to the machine and back.  
“It’s a dollar a play,” he said.  
“Yes, I can see that. But I don’t want to play. How much to just buy the toy?”  
“I’m sorry sir, if you want it you have to win it.”  
“I see,” said Lucifer, pulling a few bills from his pocket. “That’s how it is, is it? Alright, then how much?”  
The boy looked longingly at the bills in Lucifer’s hand then peered over his shoulder towards the kitchen.“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t want to lose my job, but you can buy it if you don’t win after ten tries.”  
Lucifer scoffed “I won’t need ten tries,” he said, “Alright, give me some change for this then would you?”

He turned back and studied the skill tester. It was an older looking machine with three of its little fluorescent bulbs blown and the hideous decal of an insipid looking cupid peeling from the oversized prize hatch. The mechanism looked simple enough. He just needed to press the button to go back and then the other button to go right. The boy at the counter struggled to count enough change out of the till and piled it in front of him.  
“Right,” said Lucifer and he scooped it up.

He missed the toy on the first turn, which was fine. He was getting a feel for the machine. On the second turn, he was a little to the right and succeeded in lifting it onto its side. That was a good plan, more purchase that way. On the third turn, the claws closed right around its middle. The wire jerked, but it didn’t drop. The plush rabbit was lifted a good foot above the green turf covered bottom. It began to glide towards the hatch. It swung. It dropped, tilted legs in the air against the plexiglass window.   
“Dammit!” Cursed Lucifer. A few patrons turned their heads to look. The boy at the counter, who had been watching, quickly averted his gaze. Lucifer smiled at him. He put in another dollar and maneuvered the claw over the rabbit. The metal talons opened and the line descended. A single talon grazed the rabbit’s rump and the claw closed ineffectually across the green turf base. The rabbit was now too far to one side. Lucifer huffed and before the staff could realize what he was doing he flicked the latch on the side and swung open the front panel. He plucked the rabbit from the machine, swung the door closed again and marched back to the counter. The boy’s mouth hung open and he fumbled with the keys hanging from his belt. Lucifer smiled at him again, poking a few bills into his breast pocket and turning to head for the door.  
“Hey!” Called the boy. But Lucifer was already walking out. He rounded the corner into the dark alley he had emerged from the previous night and once there he unfurled his wings and plucked a feather. He found a seam on the back of the rabbit's head and he pushed the quill into the stuffing, concealing it inside. 

 

*

Chloe had let Ella drive since she would need to head back with any evidence anyway and Ella took the corners like a maniac. Chloe clung to the doors. People looked up at the red car swinging around the bends. They were even warier than she'd seen them when she pulled up in the police cruiser, its lights on. But Chloe couldn't complain because they got there fast and safe. 

When they arrived on the corner and the GPS announced that their pinned location was on the right, the cogs and gears in Chloe’s mind were already turning. It wasn’t far from Linda’s place; a short enough walk that she might have ducked out; expecting to be back in minutes. It wasn’t a particularly bad area but it had seen its fair share of hold-ups and robberies. Chloe was considering possible motives when she got out of the car, but her thoughts quieted when she saw him.

He stood there, in blue. A broad and mischievous grin was plastered across his handsome face. A pocket square broke the symmetry that was emphasized by his Roman nose and his hands were together behind his back. He was the same old Lucifer. No knowledge of his power or his history could touch his softness or his quirks. They were just as uniquely him as before. His eyes, though calm, were concealing that righteous fury he carried, and that unquenchable thirst for certainty. His posture was relaxed but even, his appearance neat and careful. Ella had said something but Chloe had missed it.  
“Right,” she said, and Ella gave her a curious look.   
“Detective!” Greeted Lucifer in his usual tone of jovial surprise.   
“Lucifer,” she said.  
“And Miss Lopez. Is that your car?” Lucifer had obvious admiration in his voice.  
“Yeah, man,” said Ella “Just finished working on it. You want to drive her?”  
“Ooh,” he responded “but perhaps some other time.” He looked at Chloe. “Detective, I have something for you. Just a token,” he said “because I didn’t visit in the hospital.”  
“You didn’t have to do that,” said Chloe. She wanted to tell him she understood and that she was pretty sure he’d already given her a gift back there. But Ella was listening and it would definitely sound crazy.  
“Well I wanted to,” said Lucifer. “Anyway its really nothing, just a token.” He drew his hands out from behind his back and proffered the stuffed toy. Chloe took it and held it out in front of her. It was a rabbit in a police vest; a character from a movie her daughter liked to watch. She smiled. The gesture was sweet, although she wasn’t sure why he chose that specifically, aside from the obvious police link. Maybe she’d have to watch that movie again.   
“Don’t lose it,” said Lucifer.  
Chloe laughed.  
“Thank you,” she said, and she hugged him.   
She realized a moment too late that it wasn’t usual for her, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t tense up either. He felt warm and pliant and his hands touched her back.  
“Aww,” crooned Ella behind them “You guys.”  
Lucifer coughed “right then, let’s get to it. It was about here she bumped into me. I was on the way home.”  
“Oh, I had your car!” Interrupted Ella.  
“Yes, well anyway, I walked this way, she bumped into me and she said Maze had shown up all bruised and so she was out clearing her head.”  
“And then what?”  
“Well, then she asked about me.”  
“What did you say?”  
“Well, I hardly think that’s relevant. This isn’t all about me.”  
Chloe snorted. “I just want to cover every base."  
“I told her you knew,” he said, “who I am.”  
“And?”  
“That’s it,” said Lucifer. “She went that way, turned the corner. 

Chloe locked the plush toy safely in Ella’s car and the three of them turned the corner and looked around.   
“If she took the shortest route back towards hers from here, it could be anywhere within a block and a half,” said Ella.  
“What exactly are we looking for?” Lucifer asked.   
Chloe chimed in, “sign of a struggle, anything she might have dropped, CCTV, open windows people might have heard something through.”  
“There,” Said Ella, pointing at the apartment building above them, where a few balconies overlooked the street.  
“Right," said Chloe "We’ll have to canvass them in the morning. Let’s check the rest of the route.”  
“Roger that,” said Ella. She put her eyes to the ground and went ahead, stopping here and there to bag a receipt or a cigarette butt. 

“How did you come to know she was missing?” Asked Lucifer. He was walking close beside her and she felt that confidence that came from having a partner.  
Chloe shrugged. “I went to see her.”  
“I’d have thought you’d be spending the evening at home."  
Chloe sighed. “I needed to talk,” she said. “I just wanted a bit of perspective.”  
“Oh,” said Lucifer “of course Detective.”  
“It’s not that I was scared of you. I just wanted to understand what it all meant,” she added.  
Lucifer’s eyes were averted.  
“You needed to know the character of your consultant,” he said, matter-of-factly. "Very sensible Detective."  
“No,” said Chloe, stopping to turn to him. “Lucifer I’m not here with you right now as a detective. I’m not on this case and I know your character. I know you’re good. Despite everything you say, you care so much about what’s right. I wanted to understand what all that means for the world. I wanted to understand what part you played in,” she gestured around them “in all of this.”  
“Chloe,” said Lucifer, his brow lifting slightly in the middle, his eyes unblinking and lids gentle a moment. But quickly the moment passed and he blinked.  
“There’s a camera up there,” he said.   
Disappointed and unsure why, she turned to look. There was a CCTV camera on one of the buildings and Ella had come back over while they’d been talking.  
“Right,” said Chloe, pointing it out to Ella.  
“I’ve got everything that could be a clue between here and the complex. I’ll send some of the boys to go through the dumpster if you want.”  
“Thanks, Ella.”  
“Don’t mention it. So, I’ll get all this back to the lab,” she said, holding up a big plastic bag. “I’ll get on it right away.”  
“See if Dan can get the CCTV footage. It might be tricky since it’s not an active case yet.”  
“We’ll figure something,” said Ella. “Come grab your bunny from the car”  
“Right,” added Lucifer, “I’m parked by the diner. I’ll drive you home.”

*

Lucifer watched as Chloe squeezed the rabbit absently in the passenger seat and he drove carefully. He avoided the bumps and took the corners slowly. Neither of them spoke and Lucifer felt, distinctly, the urge to just keep driving until the roads ran out. He felt the leather on the steering wheel with his thumbs and watched the glow of each street-light fade as they drove past. 

When they got back to Chloe’s place, Lucifer walked her to the door.   
“I feel bad going to sleep when Linda’s out there somewhere,” said Chloe.   
Lucifer put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s tough, and there’s nothing we can do right now,” he said.   
“I know,” said Chloe, “You’re right. I just hope she’s okay.”   
As Chloe was about to turn the key, the door opened. Penelope Decker greeted them warmly.  
“Oh, Lucifer it’s nice to see you.”  
“And you,” said Lucifer “but I won’t stay. Its late after all.”  
“Not so late for you though, Mr. Morningstar,” she chuckled.  
“True,” grinned Lucifer “but I plan to be back bright and early in the morning.”  
“Well, I’ll look forward to it,” said Penelope.   
Lucifer turned to the detective “Goodnight Chloe,” he said “and goodnight Mrs. Decker of course”  
“Goodnight Lucifer,” said Chloe, and they took a moment to smile at each other before they turned and parted again. 

*

Linda Martin was no hero. She tried her best to be good and fair and she’d held her ground through the toughest of trials. But they’d been emotional ones, not physical. She’d never had to fight somebody or run for her life. She had never had to escape from confinement or trap someone in. She knew what her strengths were and so far they’d bought her some time.

“Listen, lady, no more of this therapist crap. I want to know what you are. You were talking to that thing. If you’re human then you must be some kind of psycho traiter to work with the devil.”  
Linda’s tormentor was a thin, bald man with a neck tattoo. He had a makeshift bandage around his left arm and a gun in his right. He paced across the concrete floor, crunching through litter and old leaves with a kind of sick fervour.   
“It just sounds to me like you must have some reason for pursuing him. Maybe something you feel guilty about?”  
“No more games!” He shouted. “You will tell me what you are and what he’s planning. You just need a little more persuading.”

The man grinned and ducked out the door. Linda examined her restraints, twisting her wrists back and forth. They felt like cable ties. She remembered pulling apart the same mechanism in the change rooms of outlet malls as a teenager. She’d never thought that the stupid things she did as a kid would be useful later on. She knew she could pull them apart if she tugged hard enough. The problem was that they were thin and would cut up her wrists. She’d been knocked out when it was put on so she hadn’t clenched her fists to leave room to slip out. It was behind her back, so she couldn’t get ahold of the end and make it tighter and easier to snap. She couldn’t get anything into the locking bar, but if she shimmied away from the wall she could get her arms up and bring them down, using gravity and shoulder strength to push her arms apart. There was another tie at her ankles and another at her knees, so she’d only managed to scoot forward a few inches by the time he returned.

She could smell roast chicken and her stomach lurched hungrily. She watched him walk over, open the bag and drop it onto the concrete a few feet in front of her.   
“Smells good doesn’t it?” He said.  
It smelled a hell of a lot better than the urine and boat fuel smell of the room, but Linda ignored him.   
“I’m going to let you think on it for a while," he said.  
He headed for the door again but turned around once more before he left.   
“Lights out,” and he flicked the industrial light switch, plunging the dingy room into total darkness as the door closed and the latch click echoed and Linda was alone again.


End file.
